A Story of Recovery:

Mode Swing

I met someone at a workshop and asked her how she was losing weight. She invited me to meet her at an FA meeting in Encino, CA. At the meeting, I didn’t hear anything except that I would have to give up flour and sugar and weigh and measure my food. I said, “That’s not for me,” and when the meeting ended, I left.  During that week, I thought about my beloved foods and consumed them in mass quantities. Just the thought of giving them up increased my craving and desire for them. At the end of that week, I was in a lot of bodily pain and went to my chiropractor. I thought I might have fibromyalgia or another illness. The doctor said that if he didn’t know better, he would swear that I had been eating a lot of flour and sugar. That was it! I realized what had been causing the pain in my body that prohibited me from sleeping at night, walking, running etc. I was 57 years old and I felt much older.

That Sunday, weighing 198 pounds, I went to a meeting and decided I was in. I listened to all of the readings and thought about how I had abstained from alcohol and pot for 11 years. I realized that maybe completely abstaining from flour and sugar would be easier than trying to just cut back as I had done before.

This was the end of the line for my relationship to the poison I had been hurting my body with. I immediately got a sponsor, who sat with me and gave me direction on the food plan and the tools. I went to the store immediately after that meeting and got the scale and my food.

I got home and realized that it had been more than 30 years since I had used my kitchen for anything but making a cup of coffee or feeding the animals. I was determined to make this work, even if I had to learn to cook. But in the first few days, I didn’t think I was going to make it in this program. I felt sick, weak, and discouraged. I was so hungry. My sponsor said it would take some getting used to, but that I should try drinking water when I was hungry.

While I was weighing my meal one evening, my husband came into the kitchen and commented on my food measurements. I told him that I could only have six ounces of the food on the scale. He looked at the scale and said that I wasn’t measuring ounces, that the scale was reading six grams! When I changed the mode on the scale and measured out six ounces, I was shocked at how much food I could eat. It was the best meal of my life.